No.250

November ending, a list:

1. It snowed the other week for the first time this season, and it quickly melted in the valley but the mountaintops linger in their white, and I hope they will receive enough of it this winter to feel properly good about themselves

2. The time of the rooks circling mesmerically above occurs with regularity at about 7:30am these days—they adjust with the shifting hour of first light, this morning I began to hear their croaks at 7:33—and remarkably they can easily be heard even through closed double glazed windows. I consider myself quite practiced at counting tiny things from afar, so I suspect there are easily over a thousand birds (I wrote about the rookery and the Spanish term la madrugada in my column for the summer 2024 issue of Orion)

3. One of the neighbour’s two cats must be repeatedly chased out of our garden as it likes to sit watching underneath the rowan tree and poses a great threat to the birds; a recent disarrayed and sad blanket of pigeon feathers cemented the need to repeatedly chase

4. A flock of migrating redwings—each feathered body weighing 60g—resides outside the window for just a handful of days, stripping the rowan clean of its loud red berries

5. To the plantings in the aforementioned garden there has been added the following: a quince, a cherry, a fig, and an Asian pear, all stick-like and unassuming, though in a handful of months they will, miraculously, grow leaves, perhaps even a fruit or two

6. I drive across to Glasgow to see a friend for thirty-six hours, returning with four pastry items and stuffed full of human observations, such is a city

7. We go into a cold and brilliant bookshop in Mount Florida so that I can be shown a specific pen, and as we enter we say to the proprietor We are here to look at a pen, though while looking at the pen it becomes clear that it may not be the most ergonomic choice of implement

8. Earlier in the month while passing through an industrial estate full of building contractors and fencing posts: a man carrying a single bag of groceries pauses halfway across a road to dance lost and ecstatically, just for a few moments

9. How do you know if your wrist is fractured and other stories

10. It is funny how you can intensely notice certain things about your most familiar environment and then there comes a day when you forget to notice them at all—I think that noticing is in fact a kind of remembering, conscious, so it can be unnerving to suddenly realise you forgot to notice something which at one time felt so important

11. At this point it is really the dregs of a month, you have to look deeply into them to remember what these four weeks contained, and find the things that did happen beautiful and good all over again

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WORK-RELATED NEWS:

One: 156 paintings were scanned in and polished and will soon be sent to a publisher—the book I have been working on these past months is, I think, the one which creatively has given me the most in return, and I’m looking very much forward to sharing it with you as its subject is both urgent and needed.

Two: the winter 2024 issue of Orion Magazine arrived on the doorstep two days ago. This is now my third outing as designer, and while spring next year is going to bring with it some exciting changes for the publication, this issue (their 199th) is full of stunning pieces exploring “representations of nature in film—the ways, for better and worse, that we portray the natural world onscreen, and how these portrayals shape the way we look back at the environment once we leave the cinema.”

(My column in this winter issue is about gluggaveður, and is consequently moody and weathersome.)

ART & BOOKS:

Available on my website are editions of my books in their various translations, and a small selection of original drawings and paintings. (If you’re of the mind to send someone a book or piece of art as a gift this month please note that things are shipped from Scotland—the longer the postal time the better.)

(For readers of the newsletter: You can use the code BOOKSHIP to receive free standard shipping on any book orders placed through my website.)

You can find my books in their translated editions of, among others, Japanese, Italian, and German, Korean, Spanish, and Vietnamese. All copies are available signed or unsigned—in some cases I have just one or two copies, for other editions more are available.

THIS WEEK I FELL IN LOVE WITH:

Pieces from painter and musician Lucy Roleff’s recent exhibition at Michael Reid Sydney. Long-time readers will, at this point, roll their eyes at the regularity with which I include her paintings, but I cannot help myself, especially when she includes in a still life a potato.

(Roleff’s paintings can also be found tucked into newsletters No.231, No.220, No.190, No.176, No.156, No.148 and No.136.)

“It's hard work being a person, you have to do it every single day.”

— Carol Shields, The Republic of Love

Again and for however long necessary: (Actions for demanding a ceasefire in Palestine.) / (Report Palestinian censorship in publishing.) / (Reading list for a Free Palestine.) / (Print your own postcards to demand an arms embargo and freedom for Palestine.) / (Send a physical postcard to a government official for the cost of a stamp.) / (Ten free ebooks for getting free.)

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